Pleas
by The Watched Pot
Summary: A little closure for Glitch, courtesy of some poetic justice...


You're caught. At last.

The court's a cast of thousands,

a sea of faces, I see, of faces

I should know, and do, but don't;

they won't come clear through tears

that blur my eyes and blurs that tear

my mind, and where's the Tin Man?

There. I recognise the smile he smiles

with his eyes, that's just for me.

Raynz, in chains. Alone.

His face is stony and his eyes are cruel

and, though the court is cool, he shines

with sweat. The lines across his brow

are new - the creases deepen as the

chatter ceases and the judge arrives.

We rise (who can) and every man

and woman in the jury (we are ten)

display the silver lines of our authority.

'A zipper-headed jury?' sneers the Counsel,

'It's a joke - a token group of broken

minds, with due respect,' though his derision's

barely-hidden, 'cannot be expected to arrive

at a competent decision. I object.'

The judge remains unmoved. 'The court

is satisfied that every member of the jury,

though "impaired",' and in her voice there's fury,

'still retains the power of reason and of thought.'

And clever Raynz (who Wyatt told me

had demanded he be tried by scientific peers)

stares back at us through twenty damaged years

and realises his mistake. Perhaps he should

have been a little more specific.

He marks us, one by one, and when he

gets to me, he starts to shake, or is it

me who's shaking? I can't tell; the walls

are breaking down - I see a past I'd rather not revisit.

We were never friends in the Before,

and we were never, nearly, almost lovers - how

we came that close I can't imagine, now.

Overlapping minds, both craving more, and still

it isn't long before Ambrose discovers

all the things you try to keep, you kill.

Those you cast aside, you end up saving.

Loyalty's an anchor, not a shield.

Some equations have no resolution

I've been drifting; here's the prosecution

with his lists of dates and fates and dry, cool facts

that have my fellow jurors shifting, each recalling

acts no less appalling for confusion's mists.

Like shouted horrors coming back as echoes,

sounding down the years like 'please don't do this',

all the while pretending that we're dreaming.

Easier to let ourselves be foolish

than to see his smile and wake up screaming.

We sit and listen to the 'whys' and 'hows'.

The prosecution's careful: checks we don't forget

our purpose, helps us link the 'then' to 'now',

coaxes us towards a resolution. Meanwhile, the defence

talks first of sorrow and regret, the nature of

remorse, the dreadful force the Sorceress commanded

and the acts that she demanded of the few

she held in thrall, as if poor Raynz was just

the axe, quite blameless for the forest's fall.

'This is not about revenge.' But, oh, it is

and hard to miss the hungry looks on faces

now shut out of lands in which we shone.

The books of searing knowledge that once burned

our thoughts are gone, instead, our hands

are empty or, on pages, brightly coloured shapes

cavort and play - that's all a zipperhead can read.

We're simple creatures. Now Raynz sees, with growing dread,

today we're very simple, yes, indeed.

Except I'm not. I think that I neglected

to include a little detail - through the Viewer

who's beside me I'm connected. Not quite Ambrose,

more than Glitch. It doesn't really matter which.

Though fractured I am still the same. The sum

of all our parts is more than any name

and what he stole from me was more than just

a brain. I moved the stars. He broke the

universe so he could hear it shatter.

Then, silence as the stories all wind down

to nothing, and we're led away to

contemplate our verdict; all for show, for who

could say of this man 'let him go - he

only followed orders - show him mercy?

No - he ruined lives no magic can restore.

He'd not relent if our roles were reversed.

He's not the man I might have been if I

had loved the princess, not the Queen.

I think...

I think...

I think of lines

the lines on Raynz's brow. The silver lines we wear.

The lines of prophecy that showed us how

the world would turn, and where, and what

we'd find, and who would take our piece

of mind, and Raynz - it's you.

You stole the world I knew, the friends

who crossed the line you drew.

I do believe in ghosts...

I do...

I do...

So this is how it ends.

'Guilty' doesn't seem sufficient, somehow.

Evil can't be weighed, or gauged, or measured.

Each of us he hurt has, sometime, raged,

dreamed of ways in which he'd be repaid,

vengeful fantasies we treasured. Round and round

it goes - a trap you set yourself, and

only you are snared. Evil has no mind -

it doesn't breed - it grows like apple seeds

on what you feed it. And...I'm scared.

I'm scared, because enough of me remains

to know what sour fruit I'd invent - when

death seems lenient, too fast for all the

torment that he made us suffer. Raynz

looks to me again, when finally we're asked

'before the judgement's read, will anyone speak

up for this man?' I simply watch from deep inside

my hollow, zippered head, and count back from one hundred.

finishing at last what he began.

...ninety-nine

...ninety-eight

...ninety-seven...


End file.
